How We Face Mistakes

2022-01-27

Not too long ago I encountered this Friedrich Nietzsche quote:

“Never yield to remorse, but at once tell yourself: remorse would simply mean adding to the first act of stupidity a second.”

We all make mistakes. How we respond to them is where we have a choice to make. We can dwell on them, going through it in our minds over and over, stuck with a feeling of guilt or shame. Or, we can accept that we’ve made them and now reflect on them. Trying to understand what went wrong and what can we do to make sure that next time, things happen in a different way.

Regret and reflect are two possible reactions to a mistake. One feeds a negative feeling that doesn’t really leads us anywhere, and we’re just as likely to commit the same mistake and go over it all once again. The other accepts it and enables us to grow from it.

So, next time you’re feeling bad about something that you’ve done, try not to get stuck in remorse and instead aim to learn from it.